Draco Nix transition from Wysong to Stella & Chewy

[fuzzysmama]

Hi! So Draco decided one day that she’s simply done with kibbles. I believe she’s come to realize that it doesn’t make her feel well. I’ve decided on Stella & Chewy as it’s the least gross option for the whole family, for now. She’s very picky. Originally imprinted on Marshall’s, I switched her to Wysong and even that was a daunting task...so now we’re doing FDR.
Day 1: Stella & Chewy Turkey (for cats)...breakfast: she tried it, fought, ran away, willingly tried more, scrambled away (she was literally trying to crawl up the front of my shirt and down my back to get away from it), I added some olive oil, still only a few licks before running, tried coconut oil (her favorite), a few more licks, but still only about 1/2 a pellet consumed in the hour we tried.
Lunch: ate a whole pellet with coconut added, mostly to appease us. (Daughter involved in the feeding now. They have the strongest bond- daughter and ferret).
Dinner: another full coconut pellet, only took 50 minutes this time.
Bedtime: Gave her 2 tsps turkey baby food and placed some kibble in her cage. Kibble remained untouched.

We’re now on day 3. She seems to prefer the Stella & Chewy duck duck goose. Still looking for rabbit, but I haven’t found any yet. (Chicken is out- it doesn’t agree with her at all). Some things I’ve noticed....
-waaaay less poop. I’m concerned she’s not eating enough. (Lots of piddle, however. She’s definitely getting adequate liquid!)
-bursts of energy at strange times. 2-3am cage-biting, full-on tantrum, wanting to play. (We don’t pay her any attention when having a tantrum. Not going to get into the habit of rewarding bad behavior). But still, this is strange.
-overall, more energetic. A lot more. Aggressively playing with toys she’s only cared to stash away in previous months.
Her situation might be unique though- she recently was weaned completely off an 8-month course of prednisolone and she evidently self-corrected a diabetic situation that occurred because of the pred. She’s definitely what we’d call “restless” off and on now. More so since the switch to FDR started. We’re hoping this will normalize over time.

One question I do have- baby food with FDR...is mixing the two together posing any bacterial overload risk to her? I understand kibble with any raw is a risk due to their being digested differently, but what about baby food? The baby food would be temporary. Having tried adding/mixing all her favorite oils and even tried adding egg, she’s just licking out the moisture from the food and not wanting to chew the FDR itself, once it’s dry (even when we add more water, she repeats the process.) Baby food seems to be the only solution to this issue for now.

Thanks guys. I look forward to any and all input

[abbeytheferret6]

One question I do have- baby food with FDR...is mixing the two together posing any bacterial overload risk to her? I understand kibble with any raw is a risk due to their being digested differently, but what about baby food? The baby food would be temporary. Having tried adding/mixing all her favorite oils and even tried adding egg, she’s just licking out the moisture from the food and not wanting to chew the FDR itself, once it’s dry (even when we add more water, she repeats the process.) Baby food seems to be the only solution to this issue for now.

I have never used fDR---but I did have problem with one of my girls going from soupies to chipped up meat. She would do the same thing lick all the soupie off the meat chips. So I offered the meat chips and just patted a little soupie on the chips with my finger. Because there was so many chips in saucer she unintentionally would get chips in her mouth. Can you powder or crumble FDR? (I really do not know anything about it as you can see)



Here is a little something--- finger feeding then the spoon
holisticferret60.proboards.com/thread/25243/draco-transition-wysong-stella-chewy

Maybe caitmonster can answer some of your questions---To me I would not think the baby food would hurt.

(Oh yeah understand the chicken thing--doesn't agree with my boy either.)

[caitmonster]

Yes FDR crumbles pretty easily. You might try crumbling it up as much as you can, then mixing it into the baby food if that's what she'll take (they are fine mixed together). Start with small amounts of the FDR, then gradually increase the ratios. You may end up having to add a bit of water to keep it from thickening up too much because the FDR will absorb moisture from the baby food. She sounds like a fierce little one!

I noticed an energy increase, along with physical improvements, too when I started adding FDR to my previous ferrets' diets. She may settle down, or--she may not. Females tend to be quite busy things anyway, have to keep house and watch the children and run the business, you know.

[fuzzysmama]

Awesome, thank you guys. Glad to know the baby food combo is ok, too! She’ll only eat baby food willingly now, so we kind of need to force the FDR in her as well. (She won’t touch kibble). It’s been over a week now that she’s said no to the Wysong.

I have been rehydrating the FDR since she’s so moisture-hungry. I’ve also read that it’s better to give it to them when rehydrated so they don’t dehydrate themselves. We’ve been doing the finger feeding, and spoon too, and the grab n dab, and we even sing to her, cheer her on, give lots of praise (although she completely doesn’t care about praise), and my daughter has even tried bargaining with her...haha. It’s just a slow and steady process, I guess. She had a duck pellet and a turkey pellet this morning (with probably about 2+ tsps baby food added), but she ate it all. Yay for little victories!

[fuzzysmama]

Well, today she’s making me crazy. After all these meals where she’s barely willing to consider taking it off anything besides a finger, she’s now tasting it, eating a tiny portion and then has a spaz on the counter where all she wants to do is run away as fast as possible. She’s been biting at her tummy quite a bit after eating, too. Is this normal?

She’s been getting 1 rehydrated pellet Stella Duck and 1 rehydrated Stella pellet Turkey, with turkey baby food mixed in. Still takes between 45 minutes to 2 hours to accomplish this process twice a day. I have some other proteins coming from an online order (all Stella & Chewy, beef hearts, beef liver, mixed red meats, salmon/cod and the beef dinner patties for dogs)...hoping a flavor change will help. Poops have been looking good except for her 1st one today- very watery. The next was a beautiful log. Seems like she’s not keeping the food in long enough...?

[abbeytheferret6]

She’s been biting at her tummy quite a bit after eating, too. Is this normal?

Somebody might know something about that--other than shedding or fleas---I would not know.

The next was a beautiful log. Seems like she’s not keeping the food in long enough...?

Here is something about the ferret' digestive system.

It takes only 3 hours for a morsel of food to be swallowed by a ferret, pass through the digestive tract, and come out in the litter box. This rapid passage time means that digestion of food is inefficient compared to other animals. Some food is passed unchanged from one end of the intestine to another because it is not exposed to the digestive enzymes and the lining of the gut for long enough to be completely absorbed this applies to complex carbohydrates, like vegetables.

If you want to see how little a ferret's intestine changes the food he eats, feed him dark colored pellets in the morning, then take them away and feed light colored pellets. If you check the litter box in the evening, there will be two different colors of stool, and sometimes the same piece of stool will be divided into light and dark areas.

Article by: Judith A. Bell, DVM, PhD

However, with raw there is smaller poohs because better absorption (no fillers as in kibble).
But it depends on what they ate---for example, when mine eats fur it can be a nice size. I would worry about diarrhea----something like that or r no pooh. Probably affecting pooh time can be excitement when playing or distress, and also if something disagrees with them. Sometimes ferrets do not do well on chicken or beef---but i would watch to see if this is habitually the case before making that determination.

Just guessing, I would think mine goes about 4 -5 times in 24 hours though I have not actually counted it. When my Abbey was on Wysong she went about 12 times in 24 hours--it was really a lot.